Gunsight Pass eBook

But Dave walked on mountain-tops tipped with mellow
gold. He threw off the weight that had oppressed
his spirits for years and was for the hour a boy again.
She had exorcised the gloom in which he walked.
He looked down on a magnificent flaming desert, and
it was good. To-day was his. To-morrow was
his. All the to-morrows of the world were in his
hand. He refused to analyze the causes of his
joy. It was enough that beside him moved with
charming diffidence the woman of his dreams, that with
her soft hands she had torn down the barrier between
them.

“And now I don’t know whether I’ve
done right,” she said ruefully. “Dad
warned me I’d better be careful. But of
course I always know best. I ‘rush in.’”

“You’ve done me a million dollars’
worth of good. I needed some good friend to tell
me just what you have. Please don’t regret
it.”

“Well, I won’t.” She added,
in a hesitant murmur, “You won’t—­misunderstand?”

His look turned aside the long-lashed eyes and brought
a faint flush of pink to her cheeks.

“No, I’ll not do that,” he said.

CHAPTER XXXII

DAVE BECOMES AN OFFICE MAN

From Graham came a wire a week after the return of
the oil expert to Denver. It read:

Report satisfactory. Can you come at once and
arrange with me plan of organization?

Sanders was on the next train. He was still much
needed at Malapi to look after getting supplies and
machinery and to arrange for a wagon train of oil
teams, but he dropped or delegated this work for the
more important call that had just come.

His contact with Graham uncovered a new side of the
state builder, one that was to impress him in all
the big business men he met. They might be pleasant
socially and bear him a friendly good-will, but when
they met to arrange details of a financial plan they
always wanted their pound of flesh. Graham drove
a hard bargain with him. He tied the company fast
by legal control of its affairs until his debt was
satisfied. He exacted a bonus in the form of
stock that fairly took the breath of the young man
with whom he was negotiating. Dave fought him
round by round and found the great man smooth and
impervious as polished agate.

Yet Dave liked him. When they met at lunch, as
they did more than once, the grizzled Westerner who
had driven a line of steel across almost impassable
mountain passes was simple and frank in talk.
He had taken a fancy to this young fellow, and he
let him know it. Perhaps he found something of
his own engaging, dogged youth in the strong-jawed
range-rider.

“Does a financier always hogtie a proposition
before he backs it?” Dave asked him once with
a sardonic gleam in his eye.

“Always.”

“No matter how much he trusts the people he’s
doing business with?”

“He binds them hard and fast just the same.
It’s the only way to do. Give away as much
money as you want to, but when you loan money look
after your security like a hawk.”